How did I miss this?!? Thanks Hive account@themillionthings 😊

I love the idea that ethics is a systems thing rather than a personal one.

I wish I could flesh this out further with you. My understanding of wu-wei has built in the concept of causes/consequences. In the texts I’ve read, the ancient Chinese idea of this was that everything in nature (“under Heaven”) live in a wu-wei manner, but humans are bit too clever and our conditioning and learning and intellect and so on get in the way. It’s why the Taoists were so into the idea, and using natural phenomena as a model for living.

EG: A tree can only ‘tree’ as to do otherwise would go against its nature, the consequences of which would affect everything else in the eco-system that it is inter-related to.

If we build systems following natural models (such as in biomimicry) then we could potentially solve this issue, as you say. Even without being a naturalist or biologist, I find ecological systems vital and influence my thinking even in “human” fields such as history, philosophy, politics, technology, etc.

But never considered ethics from this angle... will ponder further 😉🙏🏽☯️.

My criticism about the ancient Chinese / Taoist idea (which is what I was alluding to with my ‘murderer’ example) is the whole question of ‘what is human nature?’ — if a tree ‘trees’, if a bird ‘birds’ and they are expressing their true nature?..... well, how do we ‘human’? Maybe violence is a natural part of our nature? Personal opinion is not.... but I can’t hold that belief without irrefutable evidence (and unfortunately the evidence suggests we are cruel and violent, and the opposite is if anything a mutation ... perhaps a sign of how we will eventually evolve, I hope so...)